WASHINGTON – CIA Director John Brennan is apologizing to Senate intelligence committee leaders after his inspector general found that CIA employees acted improperly when the CIA searched Senate computers earlier this year.

Agency spokesman Dean Boyd said in an email to The Associated Press that Brennan has convened an accountability board that will investigate the conduct of the CIA officers and discipline them, if need be. The Justice Department has so far declined to pursue criminal charges against the employees, who searched the computers for information gathered in the course of an investigation into the CIA's interrogation techniques.

The controversy is centered on an investigation of the CIA's interrogation and detention practices after the 9/11 attacks.